And the most important story in the world tonight is the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine. Today, the first fatal shots have been fired, the Ukrainian soldier is dead. Russia has officially annexed the peninsula of Crimea, and Ukraine has mobilized troops on the border.

All while the war of words between Washington and Moscow has escalated to a point where it gets harder and harder to see how either side backs down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This seems we do have the first shots fired in anger, the first fatality of this crisis. There must have been some resistance. Shots were fired and one man is dead.

HAYES (voice-over): At a military base in Simferopol, a Ukrainian junior officer was reportedly killed today by unidentified forces. The first soldier killed since Russian forces arrived in the peninsula last month.

According to the Ukrainian government, another officer was injured in the attack and a base commander was captured by men wearing Russian uniforms.

Ukraine`s prime minister called it a war crime and authorized the thousands of Ukrainian troops still stuck in Crimea to use arms to defend themselves. The base attack happened shortly after Crimea officially, at least according to Moscow, became part of Russia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the first time since borders were redrawn in 1945, one European country is annexing territory belonging to another.

HAYES: At the Kremlin, in a 47-minute speech punctuated with rapturous applause from Russia`s parliament, Vladimir Putin announced that Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia, even though it`s been far of an independent Ukraine for over two decades. He also called out western arrogance, hypocrisy, and pressure, saying, quote, "If you push a spring too hard, at some point it will spring back. You always need to remember this."

Then, accompanied by some of the key players who seized power in the Crimean government in February, Putin officially signed a treaty making Crimea part of Russia before capping off the day with an appearance at a rally in Red Square, where thousands of Russians cheered the annexation. Putin reiterated today that he has no designs on other parts of Ukraine.

TRANSLATOR: "Who is shouting that Crimea will be followed by other regions?" he asked. "We do not want the divisions of Ukraine. We do not need it."

HAYES: The Ukrainian government is not taking him at his word, and is now engaged in a massive counter-mobilization. Reinforcing troops close to the Russian border including near the tinderbox town of Donetsk, site of bloody clashes between pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine protesters.

Ukrainian army is also bolstering its presence along the new border with Crimea, digging trenches, fortifying Ukraine`s remaining territory.

Near Kiev, defense forces are hoping to train up thousands of volunteers as national guardsmen while in the capitol, itself, the government approved a partial mobilization of 40,000 reservists, as a line of veterans from last month`s uprising guarded Ukraine`s parliament.

The Obama administration has stopped short of offering military assistance to Ukraine, but strongly denounced the Russian annexation of Crimea and Putin`s rhetoric today.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: It`s very dangerous to see this rise of a kind of nationalism that is exercised unilaterally. All you have to do is go back and read in history of the lead-up to World War II and the passions that were released with that kind of nationalistic fervor.

HAYES: Elsewhere in Washington, D.C., the hawks are circling. William Kristol citing Reagan and the Cold War writing this week a war wary public could be persuaded into another war. Quote, "Events right now are doing the awakening. All that`s needed is the rallying."

And Senator McCain asking the U.S. to help the Ukrainian military.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: We need to give a long-term military assistance plan because God knows what Vladimir Putin will do next.

HAYES: No one knows with certainty what any of the actors in this unfolding crisis will do next, which is precisely what makes it so frightening.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Joining me now, former Ambassador Michael McFaul, who just ended his post as U.S. ambassador to Russia. He`s now an NBC News analyst and professor of political science at Stanford University.

Ambassador, I want to get your reaction right off the bat to something Ron Paul wrote today in "USA Today." He asked this basic question. I`d love to hear your thoughts on. "Why does the U.S. care which flag will be hoisted on a small piece of land thousands of miles away?"

What is the U.S. interest here?

AMB. MICHAEL MCFAUL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: The U.S. interest, and I would say the interest of the entire world, the international community, is to have a system, a set of rules that govern the international system. That`s why the United Nations was set up after the horrors of World War II, and one of the principle rules of that system has to be and has been until just recently, until today, actually, that you don`t annex territory of other sovereign states.

If you don`t stop that, where does it begin? Where does it -- where does it end, I`m sorry to say. Where do the dominos end if you start redrawing borders that people don`t like?

That was a very important part of what was successful about the establishment of the United Nations. This is now a real challenge to international order.

HAYES: When Vladimir Putin says, you know, there`s all this hysteria that we`re going to do more than just, you know, annex Crimea, do you take him at his word?

MCFAUL: Well, I thought it was very important that he said what he did today. That`s reassuring.

But I`ll just remind you, a month ago, he wasn`t talking about marching into Crimea, either. In fact, I went back and I looked over lots of Putin`s speeches over the last 24 hours. I don`t remember him ever dedicating a speech to "our Russian citizens that we abandoned in Crimea and now it`s a time to bring them back." This was all new.

This was a tactical move by him in response to the fall of the government in Kiev. And what I worry about in Ukraine is not that Putin has decided, "OK, now I`m going to go carve off a third in eastern Ukraine." What I worry about is what you reported on at the top of your show, that soldiers fire at each other, people die, it escalates, and then there`s a process and an action/reaction process that might tempt President Putin to get involved in eastern Ukraine.

HAYES: This is my fear as well because it seems to me while all parties, at least publicly are saying obviously the thought of military engagement is unthinkable. Russia obviously still a nuclear power. We`re not going to have a land war in basically the middle of Europe and, you know, Senator Chris Murphy who`s been outspoken saying there`s no military option here.

That, you know, at the same time, when you have lots of mobilized soldiers staring each other down, when you have Ukrainian domestic politics, which if there are more Ukrainian soldier deaths, there`s going to be some mounting calls for some kind of response, that things can get out of hand very quickly.

MCFAUL: That`s exactly right. I mean, the history of Europe shows that. What starts as a little incident blows up into a major war.

And I think you raised a very important point about nationalism. I mean, imagine if Mexico had moved into New Mexico. What would be the reaction here in the United States?

What is striking, so far, about Ukraine and the Ukrainian government is how tolerant they`ve been. How cautious they`ve been.

But you have to believe -- in fact, I`m in touch with Ukrainians -- that are furious about this situation.

HAYES: Yes.

MCFAUL: That don`t like this situation, and that want to react to this Russian annexation. That`s dangerous.

HAYES: Yes, in fact, it appears from several reports I`ve seen, and several folks I`ve been in contact with, that there is a growing kind of populous backlash against the perceived fecklessness of the interim government in dealing with what they see as Russian aggression and, of course, that`s all leading up to a national election in May. You can imagine the kind of forces in the domestic political coalition of Ukraine that are empowered by the thought of an imminent military engagement with Russia.

MCFAUL: Exactly. When I was back as ambassador just a few weeks ago, I would talk to my Russian colleagues and they would say we fear these extremists, we fear these Nazis, so-called Nazis in Ukraine. I would say, well, then, stop aggressive policies against Ukraine. There`s no better way to stir nationalist sentiment than exactly what they`ve done in Ukraine.

HAYES: Ambassador Michael McFaul -- thank you so much.

MCFAUL: Thank you.

HAYES: Joining me now, Stephen Cohen, my colleague at "The Nation." He`s contributing editor, has been writing about this story. He`s also author of "Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives."

All right. Two things in the Putin speech today that seem to be within tension of each other. One was this is about Crimea, it`s not about eastern Ukraine, people are being hysterical, we`re just -- and then a broader story about the fact Crimeans woke up in 1991 and all of a sudden switched nations that seemed to call into question of the validity of the entirety post-Russian breakup of the Soviet Empire, basically.

STEPHEN COHEN, THE NATION: Putin gave a history speech and by in large factually was correct. The interpretations was open to dispute. What he`s saying is 25 million Russians found themselves, quote, "abroad" when the Soviet Union broke up. Many in Ukraine, but also the Baltics.

Can I interject a word where you and Michael --

HAYES: Yes, please? Yes.

COHEN: I tilt more toward your view than Michael`s. I don`t want to over-dramatize, but I think we`re two steps from a Cuban missile crisis situation with Russia.

Those two steps would be NATO troops are moved to the Polish/West Ukrainian border. There`s talk of doing that. In reaction, Putin sends Russian troops into eastern and southern Ukraine. That`s the Cuban missile crisis.

What comes next is unthinkable. Now, there`s a way out. But as you also pointed out, all the crazies, all the extremists in Moscow and in Washington and in Europe are flocking to this issue like vultures at a carcass in a hot desert.

I mean, where is the bold, calm, rational leadership? If it doesn`t come soon, we may be sitting here talking about war in a week.

HAYES: OK. That`s what I think all parties want to avoid.

So how -- what is the way out of this, right? I mean, I think people -- this is dynamic, as I see it. There`s a very important principle here which is you can`t just go annex another part of a sovereign territory. We`re not going to do anything militarily. We, meaning the West, the U.S., NATO, et cetera. But we`re going to raise the stakes, we`re going to, you know, punish Russia.

COHEN: Yes.

HAYES: Russia says, eh, no big deal. So, we can take whatever you can punish us with, because frankly Crimea matters more to us than you. And then you get the equilibrium. The question is, what`s the way out of that equilibrium?

COHEN: Well, I revert to the -- what I was thought as a kid, there`s two sides to every story, even Russian story. We have to ask ourselves, is Putin right about anything? Or because it comes from Putin, is it wrong?

Now, the point he made in his speech today is he`s cornered. Russia is cornered by the expansion of NATO to Russia`s borders.

Is that right? Is he right to feel that way?

He said he`d been betrayed and let down by the United States. That has to be reviewed. But he also said two very important things, his foreign office did. We, the Russians, see the solution as a federalization of Ukraine, where the republics, including the Russian-speaking ones, have a certain amount of autonomy.

And they went to say that if we can bargain in that, we`re prepared to play a constructive role, including in the rebuilding of the Ukrainian.

HAYES: OK, but --

COHEN: That`s where you start.

HAYES: OK, but if that`s the negotiation, first, let`s just be clear about NATO. I mean, NATO, obviously, there`s this question about the degree to which a promise was made in 1991/1992 about not extending NATO, right? There`s a sense in which --

COHEN: It`s ancient history.

HAYES: OK. But here`s the question, right? The rejection of Ukraine as a possible NATO country has already happened, right?

COHEN: No. No. No. Ukraine -- you mean in Ukraine or in the West?

HAYES: In the West.

COHEN: No, absolutely not. In 2008, Bush, then our president, tried to bring Ukraine, Georgia, into NATO and it was vetoed by Merkel.

If you go back to November of last year, with that so-called economic offer from the European Union, if you read the fine print, there`s a section called 7 and 9, I think, security issues. It`s clear by signing it, Ukraine became obliged to follow NATO policy.

So, in the Russian mind -- now wait a minute -- in the Russian mind, if we try to see the other guy`s side of the story, and for this you get called a Putin apologist -- but to see the other story, in the Russian mind, this is about expanding NATO to Ukraine.

Therefore, if you want to sit down and solve the problem, you say, OK, NATO expansion is over in the direction of Ukraine and Georgia.

HAYES: But then, of course, the counter to that, right, that fundamentally functions as a reward for something that`s, like, a pretty big violation of international norm.

COHEN: I don`t see it that way. But let me -- we have a clue. This Ukrainian unelected leader who came to see Obama in the White House was given a history lesson in the White House. He was talking crazy. He went home and he talked sane.

And one of the things he said when we got home this morning or yesterday is we do not seek NATO membership.

HAYES: Right.

COHEN: In other words, it`s understood in the White House, it`s understood in Kiev that NATO is off the table. Now, the Russians are prepared to talk.

HAYES: Well, that is the question. Because if that is the red line, if the NATO membership is the thing that can enable further conversation and an off-ramp from the conflict, that seems like an area for consensus.

Stephen Cohen from "The Nation" -- thank you so much.

New clues in the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The aircraft`s movements were consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane. That remains the position of the investigating team.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Deliberate action by someone on the plane. There`s been some late breaking news tonight. New exclusive reporting from NBC News -- the turn the plane made was likely programmed into the flight management system from the cockpit and crucially before the co-pilot`s good night, additional details that may suggest premeditation. We will get into it, ahead.

And later, Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brother funded outlet, gets some humility and gets out of the Obamacare horror story business, at least for now. I`ll explain, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Breaking news tonight in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished 11 days ago with 239 people onboard.

Sources tell NBC News that Flight 370`s left turn off its flight plan was likely programmed into the flight management system from the cockpit before the final transmission of automated communications data and crucially -- this is key -- before the co-pilot calmly said, "All right, good night" to air traffic controllers, at least 12 minutes before that final transmission. That would suggest that the flight crew planned the new route and then indicated there were no problems with the flight -- a timeline that would seem to strongly suggest foul play by the co-pilot and anyone else active in the cockpit at the time.

But, crucial caveat, former National Transportation Safety Board investigator Greg Feith told NBC News that this new information does not necessarily by itself indicate ill intentions. According to Feith, quote, "Some pilots will program into an alternate flight path in the event of emergency. We don`t know what the reason was for this particular flight plan, whether to go back to Kuala Lumpur or take the airplane somewhere away from Beijing."

This information follows a report today in "The New York Times" that according to senior American officials, the flight`s sharp turn was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane`s cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems.

Meanwhile, amidst growing speculation that one or both of the flight captain or first officer may have been responsible for the flight`s disappearance, Malaysian authorities said today that police searches of the captain and first officer`s home and computers turned up nothing suspicious. And Malaysian officials facing continued criticism for offering contradictory and confusing information to the public indicated the search had been expanded to 2.24 million square nautical miles, a massive area.

So, Kerry, what are we to make of this? At first blush, it sounds deeply incriminating. Greg Feith offers some caution about possible non-nefarious explanations. What`s the takeaway?

KERRY SANDERS, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: I think the takeaway is we have sort of a timeline.

HAYES: Yes.

SANDERS: We have to remember, it was the officials in Malaysia who initially said that the programming of anything on that turn happened after the call. Then they revised it and now it`s before. And so, going into that flight management system, (a) shows that there`s knowledge of the equipment. You or I couldn`t go in there, we couldn`t figure out how to do this.

So, there`s somebody who clearly knows what they`re doing. It happened after the plane took off while it was in flight, at least 12 minutes before that radio call, maybe even earlier. And so, it suggests that somebody had access to the cockpit.

Who`s in the cockpit? Well, we know on most flights, generally, the only people allowed in that cockpit are the pilot and the co-pilot and maybe a flight attendant going in or out to talk to them.

But it certainly raises all types of possibilities. But, again, as Greg points out, it may be that this is just an experienced pilot. Somebody who knows, you always have an alternate plan set up in the event of an emergency.

HAYES: Right.

It is another data point, and I sort of wanted to be slow in the rush to public judgment of these, the missing pilot and his co-pilot, for obvious reasons. This data point, again, if it is hard confirmed, this is from sources close to the investigation, does seem to push in that direction in terms of the investigation.

NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders -- thank you.

Joining me, Robert Francis, former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. He`s now a senior policy adviser at a law firm Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger.

And I`ve been -- I`ve been struck, Robert, by this term "foul play", and wondered, in your experience as an NTSB -- with the NTSB, was that something that you, folks at the NTSB have experience looking into? What that term even means in the context of a pilot in an aircraft?

ROBERT FRANCIS, FORMER NTSB VICE CHAIRMAN: I think the answer to that is no. I don`t -- I mean, I think that if in any of our investigations, and I don`t -- obviously, TWA 800, which exploded off Long Island, foul play was a big issue and we were working hand in glove with the FBI throughout that entire investigation.

I think that`s my only -- my only experience, and we went forward with the investigation and determined that it was an accident and the NTSB was in the lead.

HAYES: In the absence of forensic evidence, in the absence of wreckage or the plane or obviously a plane safely landed somewhere, is there anything definitive that can be determined? I mean, I guess my point is, in the absence of finding the plane which does seem to me less and less likely each day this goes on, or at least finding it in the near term, what does an investigation even consist of, or is this about what we`re going to get?

FRANCIS: Well, I don`t see how we`re going to get a great deal more than what we`ve got. And even what we`re getting now seems to change a little bit. I mean, we`ve got Greg`s comments about the flight management system being preset to the turn, and that may very well be the case, that certainly experienced pilots do do that.

Another very experienced aviation person looked at that turn and said that turn was hand flown.

HAYES: Right.

FRANCIS: So, you`ve got a point, counterpoint, in almost every stage of this investigation.

HAYES: Well, the hand flown theory, and, again, there was a theory that was very popular on the Internet today by a pilot by the name of Goodfellow who basically put forward the theory there was a cockpit fire and that hard left bank was an attempt to kind of take the plane back towards a runway, get it down in response to cabin depressurization.

Again, at the point of this investigation seems to be what we do know is that the plane seemed to ping around in some kind of intentional way in that part over the Strait of Malacca before it went off into where it went off which does seem to indicate there was some kind of management of the plane at that point.

FRANCIS: I think that`s correct. But, again, it`s very hard -- if you`re losing, if there`s an electrical fire in the bay where all of the technology is, if you`re in the process of doing that, of losing, and you lose one thing at a time, from our point of view, looking back, it makes it extraordinarily difficult for us to decide what are the pilots flying, what do they know at any given time? Because they may be losing systems --

HAYES: Right.

FRANCIS: -- one by one.

HAYES: Yes. Former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Robert Francis -- thank you for your time.

FRANCIS: You`re welcome.

HAYES: Coming up, a bill in the state legislature could make it legal to carry guns basically almost anywhere in Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE SEN. BILL JACKSON (R), GEORGIA: They`re killing people with frying pans. They`re killing people with hammers. There`s more murders with hammers last year than there was shotguns, pistols, AK-47s.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That man is one of the lawmakers who will decide the issue. More on this, next.

HAYES: More than 40 people were arrested today in Atlanta during a serious of protests around the capitol and the governor`s office. These folks, mostly retirees came out in force calling for Georgia to expand Medicaid, something Georgia`s Republican governor and the state`s Republican-led legislature have refused to do.

Blocking Medicaid expansion for hundreds of thousands of Georgians is just one part of a broader reactionary agenda being pushed by Republicans in Georgia right now.

Lawmakers down there are also trying to pass something called the Safe Carry Protection Act right now, or, as the NRA refers to it, the most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation in recent state history.

Let me give you a rundown of just a few things this legislation would do, allow guns to be carried in bars and some government buildings, and in churches, and in certain parts of airports. One version of the bill would expand the ability of adults to carry weapons in schools and prohibit the state from keeping a gun database of owners with a carry permit.

But maybe the most insidious piece of this legislation is language that would appear to extend stand your ground protection to include illegal guns. The bill appears to extend stand your ground protection to felons who are not legally allowed to possess guns. So, under this legislation, even if you personally are barred from having a gun, if you could in theory shoot someone with an illegal gun and avoid prosecution under the state`s stand your ground law.

The state of Georgia, by the way, has already seen an 83 percent increase in justifiable homicides since its stand your ground law was enacted. The bill passed the Georgia House by an overwhelming majority last month, and now House Republicans are using a procedural maneuver to try to force a vote in the Senate before the legislature adjourns later this week, just a few days from now, by adding their latest version of the bill to another apparently less controversial gun bill, that one designed to allow certain judges to carry firearms.

Will anyone be barred from carrying guns anywhere inside the state of Georgia by the time the legislature adjourns this week? The answer is not entirely clear at this point.

Colin, one of the most controversial elements of this bill, which was so controversial it was taken out, would actually have allowed guns to be carried on college campuses. Am I right?

COLIN GODDARD, VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Right, but that has been removed because the overwhelming majority of board of regents in the state and students spoke out against it.

And so now we`re looking at so many other bad parts of this bill as well. Like you said, this bill allows guns into K-12 schools, which the Georgia PTA and American Federation of Teachers oppose. This would allow guns in churches, where the vast majority of denominations for different parts of the state oppose this and a giant coalition of faith leaders.

This would allow guns in government buildings, where mayors -- the Georgia Municipal Association, the Association of County Commissioners opposes this. This would allow guns in airports, where the TSA and Georgia Chiefs of Police oppose this and, you`re right, further than that, would literally allow felons who shoot and kill someone with an illegal gun to claim stand your ground protection, which is just absurd.

HAYES: OK. Well, that`s a fairly persuasive case for me. You`re in Georgia now, and the question is, is this bill getting traction? Is it getting attention? Has it become -- you`re down there working with groups that are trying to block it.

Is it in the limelight? Are folks focused on just how extreme this bill is?

GODDARD: Well, as the session started, everyone thought this bill was a done deal, it would be done by now.

And so what they have been surprised by is the overwhelming majority of Georgians who stood up and said, this is ridiculous, I don`t want this, who are you doing this for? And so now we`re literally in the last like day and a bit of legislation. And we have moderate Republicans trying to find a solution. We have things happening constantly.

But we`re ultimately looking at the leadership in the state and saying, what are you doing, who are you doing this for? You should listen to the overwhelming majority of your citizens and vote against this. And we`re looking at Governor Deal particularly, who`s in a tough reelection, to say, are you sure you want to do this in this year?

HAYES: I`m glad you brought up Governor Nathan Deal, who`s facing reelection in the fall. We contacted his office and were told by a representative there that the governor does not -- quote -- "comment on pending legislation."

That struck me as a strange response from a sitting governor, given that much of what governors do all the time is comment, work on pending legislation.

GODDARD: Well, right. I think the governor is just trying to avoid more bad press. You know, like I said, when the vast majority of his state`s constituencies oppose this legislation, yet it`s still happening, it`s still in play, everyone`s looking at him like, you know, what`s going on? What are you doing? And we`re needing to call him out for it.

HAYES: Where does it come from, then? You know, one of the things I think I have tracked in looking through the gun issue is, in certain states that are so pro-gun generally in the disposition of both their constituencies and politicians, that gun rights advocates or the NRA, they run out of stuff to push, because you basically -- you have kind of hit the frontier and now you`re in the water.

I mean, is that the situation in Georgia, where the gun laws are already lax enough that you have to come up with increasingly more preposterous solutions to propose to a problem that does not exist?

GODDARD: I think that`s pretty close. And I think it comes from a real no-compromise, small-state gun rights group that`s trying to get this done, not from the overwhelming majority of citizens in the state.

And for so long, though, that they have had the field to themselves and there hasn`t been a coordinated, organized opposition, now you`re starting to see that. Now these dynamics are changing and now this is an equation that`s no longer how it`s used to have been. And we`re seeing bills that were -- as I said, were supposed to be done already going to the last minute of the last day.

HAYES: Yes. It sounds like there`s a day-and-a-half. You think you can stop this?

GODDARD: There is -- like I said, we had a press conference today. We have people literally lobbying throughout tonight. We will be there until midnight tomorrow night. We`re hoping that the moderate party -- parts of both parts come together and say this is not something the people of Georgia want and deserve.

HAYES: Colin Goddard, thank you so much for your time.

GODDARD: Thanks for having me.

HAYES: Coming up: Governor Bobby Jindal has no problem denying health insurance to 242,000 people in his state. But when a progressive group makes a billboard stating that fact, well, suddenly there`s hell to pay, because the billboard dared to use the state`s tourism logo. I will take you inside that lawsuit ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: The Obamacare death spiral, the decline of the Obama presidency, the end of the Democratic Senate majority, the collapse of liberalism as we know it -- there were many pronouncements of doom about Obamacare, but we have got some new data that makes those predictions look pretty off-base. That`s ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Big news tonight. Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers-backed Tea Party wing of big money spenders, are actually capable of being shamed.

This is a surprise, because if you have been watching these shameless ads they have been running, you would think they were indeed incapable of being shamed. See, for instance, this one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY AD)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was doing fairly well fighting the cancer, fighting the leukemia, and then I received the letter. My insurance was canceled because of Obamacare.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: As we covered here and as reported in "The Detroit News," it turns out her new plan will save her at least $1,200 compared with her former insurance plan, and she will be able to keep, keep her oncologist through the new plan.

Well, guess what? Here`s the latest AFP ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY AD)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s not about a Web site that doesn`t work. It`s not about poll numbers or approval ratings. It`s about people. And millions of people have lost their health insurance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: You see the difference there? It turns out there is apparently a level of emotional manipulation and duplicitousness that`s too much even for Americans for Prosperity.

Or, put another way, those real people ads can easily be fact-checked and rebutted and have been by so media outlets that AFP went in this new generic direction.

Americans for Prosperity respond: "We`re currently on air with many different types of ads, including personal testimony of Obamacare impact. This is the same strategy we have been using for six months. It does not represent a shift in strategy."

If you say so, AFP.

But incapable of being shamed? Apparently, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. The governor, like many of his fellow Republican governors, is standing in the way of health care for the state`s working poor by blocking Medicaid expansion, despite the fact the state would not have to pay a cent for it this year.

MoveOn.org tried to shame him with this billboard. And now the state of Louisiana, through its lieutenant governor, has fired back, not, not about people not getting health care, but about the billboard using the state`s tourism logo and motto.

The state is suing MoveOn, saying the billboard is causing -- and I`m quoting here -- "irreparable harm, injury and damages to the state`s cultural tourism office." To repeat, the state is suing over the use of its tourism logo because it`s the satirical use of said logo that`s causing harm, injury and damages, not Bobby Jindal denying health insurance to 242,000 of his constituents.

Joining me now Anna Galland, the executive director of MoveOn.org.

Anna, are you surprised by the lawsuit?

(LAUGHTER)

ANNA GALLAND, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MOVEON.ORG: I think my first reaction was disbelief. But then that quickly became something akin to outrage.

Look, there`s 242,000 people in Louisiana who don`t have health care. The fact that they don`t have health care is a choice by the elected officials in Louisiana. It`s not a necessity. And instead of dealing with the fact that there are these hundreds of thousands of people right now, some of whom will die because they don`t have access to health care, instead of working on that problem, the state has chosen to sue MoveOn.

So, yes, my first reaction, I think, is a mixture of disbelief, and it`s almost -- it`s almost funny, if the stakes weren`t so high.

HAYES: You guys have focused on Medicaid expansion. You have been focusing on Louisiana. Why -- why this issue? Why have you taken this up?

GALLAND: So, I mean, first and foremost, it`s about the people. So it`s not just in the state of Louisiana, but around the country there are over five million people who live in Republican-led states who are not getting access to health care because of this choice that these Republican state officials are making.

And they`re making the choice not because it makes any policy sense, and not even because it makes political sense. Actually, Medicaid expansion is popular in these states. They`re really just, as far as we can tell, catering to a very narrow slice of their own base.

And, so, you know, this is an issue that I think, first and foremost, it`s about the people. Secondly, I actually think that this is an important issue for us to take on to show Democrats what it means to stand up and fight on health care. Right, I mean, what we`re seeing in...

HAYES: Yes.

GALLAND: Go ahead. Yes.

HAYES: No, it strikes me -- it just strikes me that this is a winnable fight even in red states. What we have seen is there has not been a uniform response from Republican governors. We have seen some Republican governors accept it.

GALLAND: Jan Brewer, John Kasich.

HAYES: Exactly. And so this is a winnable fight.

I mean, even Rick Scott -- they haven`t accepted it in Florida, but Rick Scott actually pushed for it. He got essentially sold out by his Republican legislators. But this is a winnable fight. And I think part of the prickliness in the response of Bobby Jindal and the lieutenant governor was because they know that.

GALLAND: I think that`s absolutely right.

I think you`re seeing that -- again, if someone like Jan Brewer, someone like John Kasich can both come out and accept the Medicaid expansion, because, look, these are -- this is health care that essentially taxpayers have already paid for. Right? It`s federal money that`s already been appropriated.

And essentially what`s happening is that these governors, by turning down the funds, are shipping that money, those resources out of the state to other states that are accepting the funds. So, you`re seeing this dynamic play out, where Republicans are split on it, but too many of them are holding out, and the result of that is deadly. That`s five million people whose lives are at stake.

And so MoveOn members in the, you know, two dozen or so Republican-led states where this is going on have been standing up. We put the billboards up in Louisiana and in five other states. Louisiana is the only state where we have been sued over use of their tourist logo.

But, you know, we`re also doing on-the-ground organizing. We`re launching another ad campaign in Louisiana this week. We`re not going to let ourselves be bullied. We won`t let ourselves be silenced.

So, we think this is an important issue on the merits, and we think it`s a winning issue that we can show Democrats what it looks like to stand up and fight on health care and point out the real villains.

HAYES: Anna Galland from MoveOn.org, thanks so much.

GALLAND: Thank you.

HAYES: Remember when Obamacare was obviously doomed, a disaster, a smoking ruin? We will check back on the right`s predictions and match them with data.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Remember when one of the biggest right-wing talking points about Obamacare was the death spiral?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The exchanges don`t work, and you wind up going into what they call sort of the insurance death spiral.

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS: What did you call it, death spiral?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Insurance death spiral, yes.

KELLY: Scary.

ALLEN WEST (R), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Obamacare is going toward a death spiral.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is that death spiral.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To a death spiral.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The death spiral.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, FOX NEWS: The death spiral.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s called an insurance death spiral.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: You get into what they call that death spiral.

KELLY: This could be the beginning of the death spiral.

It could potentially be the beginning of the death spiral.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The architect of Obamacare being interviewed by Megyn Kelly, she asked him, is this the beginning of the so-called death spiral?

KELLY: Is that the beginning of the so-called death spiral?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he said -- quote -- "That could be the beginning of a death spiral" -- unquote.

The idea back then was that a broken Web site would mean the only -- only the old and sick would bother to enroll, and without younger enrollees to balance out the risk, the Obamacare exchanges would enter into an actuarial death spiral, the whole thing would be doomed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRAUTHAMMER: We have not just Obamacare unraveling, not just the Obama administration unraveling, not just the Democratic majority in the Senate, but we could be looking at the collapse of American liberalism. Obamacare is the big thing for them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that true?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Answer: not true.

Here`s what actual enrollments look like, according to ACASignups.net.

With less than two weeks remaining before the March 31 deadline for 2014 enrollments, sign-ups continue to spike. This graph includes enrollments through the exchanges, plus the Medicaid expansion, plus people under 26 years old staying on their parents` coverage.

But an important subset of that, health care exchange enrollments passed the five million mark yesterday, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. And so the revised goal of six million sign-ups appears to be within reach, also in line with the CBO`s projection, by the way.

But whether or not it does hit the six million mark by the end of the month, health industry insiders say Obamacare has cleared the bar, with the caveat that real examination will come on a state-by-state level.

"Health benefits consultants agree with President Obama`s assessment this week that enough Americans have signed up to private health plans under the Affordable Care Act that it will work."

Joining me now, Avik Roy, opinion editor at "Forbes," author of "How Medicaid Fails the Poor," Jonathan Cohn, senior editor for "New Republic," author of "Sick: The Untold Story of America`s Health Care Crisis and the People Who Pay the Price."

All right, Avik, you have been someone who has been very critical of the ACA from the beginning, but also very cautious about pronouncements of impending death spirals. So, do you feel vindicated?

AVIK ROY, "FORBES": Yes.

I mean, you know, in fairness, Chris, a lot of liberals were also worried about the so-called death spiral. And they were always wrong, both sides, both the conservatives who were cheering it on, liberals who were scared about it, because the subsidies do provide a cushion that prevent a true death spiral from occurring.

And, at the end of the day, it`s important to remember that we can`t use the sign-up figure that CMS is talking about as actual enrollments, because if you aren`t -- you aren`t actually enrolled with actual health coverage when you go to the doctor or the hospital unless you have actually paid the premium.

HAYES: Paid.

ROY: That`s number one.

Number two, it depends on whether you have been previously insured or previously uninsured. And a lot of the people, according to the surveys we have seen who`ve signed up for Obamacare on the exchanges were previously insured. And only a minority, about 14 percent, 15 percent were previously uninsured.

HAYES: Jonathan, what is your response to that?

I have been hearing a lot from conservatives about this payment issue, right, that essentially CMS is hiding the ball on whether folks that have been signed up have actually paid. Is it true they`re hiding the ball? How important is that to the long-term health of the project of the ACA?

JONATHAN COHN, "THE NEW REPUBLIC": Well, you know, Avik is right that there`s a lot we still don`t know, and, frankly, we won`t know for many months. It`s just the nature of these things. The data takes a while to gather.

I don`t think CMS is hiding the ball. I think we just don`t know. But, look, I think this has also been exaggerated in the same way those death spiral quotes you played were exaggerated.

If you talk to the insurance industry, they`re saying, yes, not everybody is paying up, but it`s about eight in 10, about 80 percent. And maybe that will even come up over time. And, you know, we don`t know what the actual decline in number of people without insurance is, but it does appear there`s circumstantial evidence, not hard proof, but circumstantial evidence that we`re starting to take a bite out of the uninsured and more people are getting coverage.

So, you know, the signs are reasonably good. I think Avik is right to be cautious. It`s always good to be cautious.

HAYES: Right.

COHN: We should have been cautious before. And we should be cautious now.

But, you know, a little -- you know, a little bit of optimism seems in order.

HAYES: Well, do you think -- did you think they were going to hit this number, I mean, even the five million? Forget if they get to six million.

I mean, in the dark days -- and it does seem to me like all the Zach Galifianakis, LeBron James, the gifts on the White House Web site, that all of this, whether it seems goofy or not to folks that seem to be critical of it, they seem to know what they`re doing in terms of pushing enrollment, getting these numbers up.

COHN: Right. I mean, look, things looked really...

(CROSSTALK)

COHN: Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

COHN: You know, things looked really bad for a while.

And I was -- you know, I certainly had my doubts. And I sort of thought, you know, when the Web site was having so many problems, if you had told me they`d get to two million, three million, and there would be big problem, I would have said, yes, that seems possible. It wouldn`t collapse, but there would be big problems.

You know, things -- after they got the Web site together, they actually started -- things started to work more or less like they`re supposed to be working. So, that`s another reason to be very cautiously optimistic.

HAYES: So, Avik, you`re now -- we`re on national television, so permanent record and all. It`s March of 2014. What are your -- when we talk about the Affordable Care Act a year from now, what are your predictions? What do you think is going to happen in this first year in which we have actually got people signed up for insurance?

ROY: Yes, I think what`s going to be interesting to see is what the insurers charge next year for health insurance.

HAYES: Right.

ROY: Because even the four private insurers who were very cautious about what the risk pool would look like, who actually predicted that there would be a skew towards older and sicker enrollees, they have actually been surprised to some degree by the amount of sicker and older enrollees in the pool because of some of the changes the White House has made on the fly, because of the grandfathered provisions, things like that.

HAYES: Right.

ROY: So, it`s going to be interesting to see how much that`s going to cost next year. The numbers we`re hearing are maybe 15 percent higher than what the prices were in year one.

So that`s going to be something to focus on. But I do think that people are going to sign up eventually, particularly the people who are eligible for the subsidies and the people who benefit in terms of being -- having preexisting conditions, being sicker.

And I do think the law is not going to get repealed. I do think it`s here to stay. And I think actually a lot of Republicans believe that, too, even though they`re not willing to admit it on the record.

HAYES: Jonathan, there is one example, there`s one precedent here, which, of course, is Massachusetts. And, in Massachusetts, I recall that the percentage of folks uninsured, it didn`t go away immediately. It was a kind of progression over time, as the patchwork of the law kind of came into place as the exchange got set up.

Is that what you expect to see? Because we were talking about -- I remember when we were, you know, fighting on this bill when I was covering it in Washington, 45 million Americans without health insurance, and now it`s -- you know, we`re down quite a bit from that. The question is, like, what`s the path from here to there?

COHN: No, that`s exactly right.

This is always going -- this was always going to be a slow process. Even the Congressional Budget Office estimates, you know, they didn`t say everyone was going to get insurance right away. They said it would be incremental, year after year. And actually, even when fully implemented, as you know, there would still be a lot of people without health insurance.

But progress would be slow, and, you know, the kinks would get worked out. And I think if you sort of watched what happened in Massachusetts, you say, OK, I get it. This takes some time. There`s going to be some bumps along the way. But, eventually, you get to a better place.

HAYES: That is the open question.

And, Avik, you sound like -- it sounds to me like that there is -- that we are -- the law is here to stay, that the debate is going to shift at a certain point about what to do about the law or how to fix it or how to alter it. But I hope that others come along to that view as well.

Avik Roy from "Forbes," and Jonathan Cohn from "The New Republic," thank you both.

That is ALL IN for this evening.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END

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